Knowledge Management System (KMS)
Knowledge management is the process of making it easier for people to develop, exchange, and use knowledge. It entails altering people’s behaviour and work habits in order to change the way everyone works. Knowledge management programmes should include both a “gathering” and a “connecting” dimension since knowledge management is really about people and how they produce, share, and use information. Connecting individuals to information is part of the collecting dimension. It has to do with gathering and sharing clear knowledge. In order to improve tacit knowledge flow through better human interaction and communication processes and ensure that knowledge is widely shared and not just kept in the heads of a select few, the connecting dimension involves connecting people with other people, specifically connecting those who need to know with those who already know. Several firms have successfully implemented Knowledge Management Systems (KMS), and they do so with genuine interest and excitement.
I. Theoretical Background Foundations
Knowledge
“Knowledge is an understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning. Knowledge can refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.”
Management
Management is an individual or a group of individuals that accept responsibilities to run an organization. They Plan, Organize, Direct and Control all the essential activities of the organization. Management does not do the work themselves. They motivate others to do the work and co-ordinate (i.e. bring together) all the work for achieving the objectives of the organization.
Knowledge Management
“Knowledge Management (KM) is managing the corporation’s knowledge through a systematically & organizationally specified process for acquiring, organizing, sustaining, applying, sharing, renewing both the tacit and explicit knowledge of employees to enhance organizational performance and create value”.
In 1986, Wiig introduced the term “knowledge management” (KM). Wiig defines knowledge management (KM) as the systematic, explicit, and purposeful creation, renewal, and application of knowledge in order to enhance an organization’s knowledge-related effectiveness and return on knowledge assets. O’Leary asserts that the ideas of content management and the collaborative process make up knowledge management.
Characteristics of Knowledge Management:
1. It is a working approach that has an influence on people and culture.
2. Something that individuals must believe in and engage in.
3. It is a comprehensive and organizational-wide strategy that supports business goals.
4. It includes knowledge generation, management, and sharing.
5. The meaningful handling of information (knowledge).
6. It represents the requirements of the company and its workers.
7. It is continual and evolves along with the company.
8. Senior management is sponsoring and in charge.
9. It concerns well considered content management.
10. KM stands for a goal (to achieve performance indicators).
11. KM refers to helping employees carry out their responsibilities.
Knowledge Management System
A knowledge management system (KMS) is any type of IT system that collects and retrieves knowledge in order to increase understanding, collaboration, and process alignment. Knowledge Management System is useful in assisting organisations in retaining employee’s knowledge after someone quits the organisation or no longer performs their usual tasks.
KMS’s goal is to design and construct information systems using IT that will help the company turn tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. It can then be applied to solve an issue with knowledge and obeying a company’s or organization’s procedures. Moreover, KMS intends to accomplish goals like information sharing, greater employment, competitive advantages, or the development of corporate innovation.
Organizations may provide information to employees whenever and wherever they need it, in addition to numerous other advantages.
II. Types of Knowledge in Knowledge Management System
There are three different types of knowledge to gather:
A. Explicit Knowledge
This is the knowledge that has to be documented and is typically simple to make into an article. It is a description of, or a list of actions that may be taken to achieve, something. Examples include clothes dimensions and fabric details or where to update your login credentials on a software application. Acquire precise information through fact-finding with your subject matter specialists.
B. Implicit Knowledge
Customers must rely on explicit knowledge to deduce this information. Customers must interpret previously acquired explicit information, as previously mentioned, or generic knowledge to get desired results. For instance, understanding that a given material is waterproof or knowing how to integrate software capabilities to meet a business objective. Collect implicit knowledge by recording your clients’ use cases and then explain how to integrate other information to achieve them.
C. Tacit Knowledge
This is information coming from experience and often takes a lot of context and practise to achieve. It might be something like knowing quickly what to do during an emergency or that a certain shoe brand doesn’t provide you enough arch support. Tacit information is hard to obtain since it is typically specialised and requires individual assessment. Start by gathering specialists or senior members of your team together to distribute complicated concepts and utilise that to construct broader training content.
Bringing these all together: Explicit knowledge is knowing what apples, cinnamon, flour, and sugar are. Implicit knowledge is knowing they can be combined to make a pie. Tacit knowledge is knowing the exact combination of the ingredients that makes the most delicious pie.
III. Benefits of a Knowledge Management System
Whether you’re a SaaS firm servicing corporate clients, a consumer product mailing out retail products, or a helpdesk manager dealing with internal customers, a knowledge management portal can help you successfully provide information to the individuals who need it. Not only is a knowledge management system wonderful for company, but it’s also great for your customers. For customers to be able to help themselves and for the entire customer experience to improve, a comprehensive knowledge management system is essential.
A. Organizes and makes information accesible from a single source of truth
According to a Gartner study on the top priorities for customer service leaders in 2022, 74% of the leaders cited enhancing the delivery of content and knowledge to clients and staff as crucial to their support strategy. Collecting and presenting knowledge in easily-accessible formats from a single content repository breaks down information barriers inside businesses. Visitors may find precisely what they need when they need it thanks to a clear structure and efficient search tools.
B. Keeps information up to date
A knowledge management system lets you detect out-of-date articles and update them with fresh information. This gives a major benefit over a file folder containing papers. Where folders can become unwieldy and messy, a KMS will keep your valuable information organised. Out-of-date information can mislead customers and lose your company business, so it’s important to get that taken care of quickly.
C. Makes self-service functionalities more effective and deflects support tickets
78% of US executives are spending more in self-service, allowing clients self-help websites and AI-powered chatbots to help themselves. Self-service, or customers assisting themselves through documentation, is the most cost-effective approach of serving your customers. Via an extensive knowledge base, chatbots, or community forums, you can be increasing self-service. Each of these self-help tools operates by locating pertinent FAQs and solution articles from an updated, centralised knowledge management system, diverting tickets from our customer support team.
D. Allows agents to share and reuse knowledge and learnings
Do your customer care workers spend a lot of time drafting out informative and detailed help emails to customers? If you’re using a contemporary KMS, you can capture that information by transforming the support email into a knowledge base article. A knowledge management system democratises important information and fosters knowledge sharing so that everyone in the firm can access it.
E. Empowers customers to help themselves and improves customer satisfaction
39% of customers say they would rather use self-service options than speak with agents. A knowledge management software gives 24/7 help to clients, so they can discover what they need fast and don’t have to wait in a phone queue. With many of your customers being able to locate their own answers effortlessly, you’ll notice your customer satisfaction (CSAT) levels climb. The delivery of information to your customers through an online help centre can be continually improved to lower churn and increase customer loyalty. Grouping your Questions on a branded, easy-to-read page may also assist gain business and avoid support difficulties from showing up later.
F. Provides more detailed help to customers
You can express so much through phone calls or email. Knowledge management solutions allow you to gather together many forms of media together to deliver incredibly complete guidance. Every clients have their own preferred manner of learning, whether it’s through text, videos, or graphics. No one of your clients will be without assistance if you offer all of these alternatives in your help centre, regardless of how they choose to access online content.
IV. Implementing a Knowledge Management System
1. Start capturing the information you want to document
Make a decision on the information you wish to enter into your knowledge management system. It might be product details, onboarding instructions, how-to manuals, FAQs, or steps for addressing frequent problems. Discover the typical questions that customers ask your support helpdesk, and then develop your knowledge base based on their demands.
2. Arrange the information with your audience in mind
You need to start by thinking about who will be searching for the information and when. This may be accomplished by looking at your customer journey, determining the information needed at each stage, and choosing the most effective means of communicating that information. For example, as you continue along the customer journey, you’ll want to restrict some material like information about referral or loyalty programmes to logged-in consumers. Or, for an internal KMS, you can set your support agents up for success with deeper product details and pricing specifics.
3. Track and analyze feedback
ln order to gauge the success of your Service, you need to tap into user feedback. Add feedback questionnaires at the conclusion of each article and guidance to understand if the material was beneficial or not. For instance, Freshdesk articles include a vote box at the bottom asking readers if they found the article to be useful or not. It’s probably time for an update if numerous readers complain that an article is not useful.
Analytics are a feature of contemporary knowledge management software that collects and displays comments on articles as well as the number of views on user-friendly dashboards. Using Google Analytics in your online knowledge management system allows for more in-depth analysis of user behaviour.
4. Update your KMS regularly
Hardly is any knowledge static. You must incorporate a procedure that updates your knowledge base on a regular basis as your product evolves, as customers voice their uncertainty or displeasure, or as your services alter. Allow numerous stakeholders within your business like the customer service staff or the sales department to collaborate, contribute, and refresh the knowledge given frequently.
V. Essential Features
1. Hierarchical content curation
Your KMS solution should have a solid hierarchy or categorization system to organise material if you want to have a well-structured KMS that customers can explore and locate the support they need. For example, if a visitor has a query about recovering their account password, they’ll be able to discover the solution readily if the information is placed under — Account settings->Manage account-> Change password.
2. Collaboration and content management
You require a mechanism to collaborate, edit, evaluate, and approve the articles produced in your KMS as various team members contribute to your knowledge base. Having the ability to save your articles as draft, invite team members to evaluate the documentation, turn support ticket replies into articles, and monitor editing history are all helpful functions that a decent knowledge management system should enable.
3. Permission and access control
Despite the possibility that every member of your team may contribute to your knowledge base, publish or update control can be handled by a small group of people as part of your editorial process to prevent badly written articles or inaccurate material from reaching the general audience. Seek for a knowledge management system that has flexible permission restrictions so that users may write articles but only specific group members have the ability to publish them.
4. Rich text editing and multimedia support
Knowledge management software need to provide simple, practical rich text editing, with the option to include videos, images, and text formatting for emphasis like bold and italics. Inside the KMS tool, you should be able to import photos, edit their dimensions, incorporate videos, or add code snippets to your articles.
5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) capabilities
By making your material more discoverable to people and thus more useful, you may increase the value of the information you share. Your knowledge management site will be simple for search engines to crawl thanks to built-in SEO tools like metadata updating, keyword tagging, and correctly designed headers. This will also help potential consumers learn more about your offerings.
6. Multilingual support
You’ll probably need to provide numerous languages in your support centre if you conduct business internationally or in several different locations. A knowledge management system ought to assist in managing translation workflow and support multilingual articles. Every visitor will feel as though you speak their language thanks to the option to change default languages based on clients’ geo-location.
